1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tracer control system which is capable of freely setting the infeed or cutting depth of a cutter.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a tracer control system of the type that calculates a trace direction and a trace velocity based on a signal from a tracer head tracing the surface of a model, the tracer head and a cutter head having mounted thereon a cutter for cutting a work-piece are usually coupled together by a rigid body so that they may be fed bodily. By such unitary feed of the tracer head and the cutter head, the workpiece can be machined into the same configuration as the model.
Since the cutter head always follows the movement of the tracer head, however, the infeed of the cutter is not necessarily appropriate when a stylus traces the model surface. The factors, to this are the length of the tool used, the manner of setting up the model and the workpiece, the shape of the workpiece and so forth. In order to prevent improper infeed of the cutter, it is customary in the prior art to provide on the side of the tracer head or the cutter head a mechanical feed mechanism for adjusting their relative positions in the Z-axis direction, thereby to adjust the infeed of the cutter. Such a mechanical feed mechanism is similarly employed also in a tracer control machine tool in which the tracer head and the cutter head are not coupled together by a rigid body but have independent drive systems and are placed under synchronous control.